ITV recruited a terrific roster of talent for the All-Star Comedy Show - Steve Coogan, Ronnie Corbett, Vic and Bob and those genius Little Britain guys.

There was Tim Healy, Linda Robson, Don Warrington, Patsy Kensit... more famous faces than Madame Tussauds.

And they spent buckets on it, the props budget was lavish. No expense has been spared.

But did anyone at Network Centre ever bother to read the script?

It was dreadful. Not just unfunny but shockingly bad, drearily, depressingly awful. Most of it felt like unfinished ideas, first drafts of sketches that no one could be a*sed to think through or come up with tag-lines for. The Boffins and the rubbish estate agent were as dull as dog's mess; the Croc Botherer went nowhere.

A promising stab at slipping saucy Carry On-style dialogue into costume drama (with neglected lute-playing wife saying "I've grown so weary of endless lonely strumming") just petered out. I laughed twice - when worried mum took problem son to the doctor who knocked him sparko; and at Vic Reeves playing a pathetic wretch with a Pinocchio nose (borrowed from Blair?) which squeaked when people trod on it.

They're probably ecstatic. The line-up alone will have had ad-men wetting themselves - all those shiny cult faces. Vic and Bob wrote it. They and Coogan are executive producers. Their companies made it. No ITV exec is named in the credits. Maybe they weren't involved. What do they know about funny? The days when ITV was run by impresarios schooled in putting bums on seats are long gone.

THERE'S hardly anyone left in TV who understands mass-appeal comedy, let alone how to produce it.

It's not enough to book big names, mention Norman Wisdom or see Ronnie Corbett's face. If the jokes don't work, then the show won't either. Vic and Bob were wonderful on C4's Big Night Out which spoofed variety. They sparkled on BBC2's Shooting Stars which subverted the panel game. But they can't do mainstream, and like their BBC1 game show Families At War this fails on every level.

It's the comedy equivalent of the Titanic: expensive and glitzy but inescapably doomed.